Sea Kayaking

So Monday afternoon, I had the opportunity to go sea kayaking! I have never done that before and it was so much fun. I went on this adventure alone because Meagan hurt her back at some point during the surf trip but it ended up being really cool because I knew 5 of the people who were on the 10 person trip!

We drove down Rainbow beach in a 4x4 and hopped out just near some cliffs ... we got in two person kayaks and headed out into the blue waters. After we got past the waves, we immediately closed in on a group of Manta Rays. These things were HUGE! Just for perspective, they can grow up to 9 meters in width (that's about 30 feet!) but we saw some that were probably about 1.5 meters or about 6 feet. They were so close, maybe 5 feet away? These creatures are the "sweethearts" of the ocean apparently (that's what the guide said).

After following the Manta Rays around for about 30 minutes, we saw two dolphins swimming past doing synchronized jumps and flips! It was so cool! I mean I have seen dolphins before, but never from in the water next to them! All in all we saw about 20 dolphins and about 10 manta rays... there was a sea turtle also but I didn't get a good look at him.

I got back to Dingo's (our hostel) just in time to catch the 5:30 bus to Airlie Beach. The bus ride was 16 hours but for some reason seemed really short! We booked an overnight bus in order to save on hostels and figured our could sleep the trip away! It worked because I slept about 14 hours! Yee haw!